Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Now that I’ve finally managed to clean the stubborn orange flakes from the inside of the Christmas, Buck’s Fizz glasses it’s time to reflect on… I don’t know… how I waste too much bloody time watching television.

Lord Scotto of House Poinker and I have been watching the entire series of Game of Thrones for the second time. We’ve slipped into a kind of television psychosis where we’ve begun to speak in medieval tongues and refer to each other as my Lord and my Lady.

“What shalt we do today, my Lord?” I asked him whilst watching my faithful Direwolf, gnawing a rabbit carcass on the flagstones.

Faithful Direwolf

“Might we journey to the inn for a chicken and ale, my lady?” Lord Scotto replied. “There’s naught else to do.”

“The inn is so terribly boring while life is full of possibilities,” I answered, gazing over his armoured shoulder at the mound of dishes in the sink. “Besides, I have imbibed in a good many ales these past few days.”

“If you look back you are lost,” he grasped my pale cheek and turned it away from the filthy quagmire in the scullery.

Then he rose and sauntered to the cold box, whistling a tune. Quick as a snake he swallowed a sweetmeat from its interior.

A hot wind was blowing from the north, and it made the palm trees rustle like living things.

“Rain is coming,” Lord Scotto whispered.

“You know nothing, my Lord,” I retorted. “The Lord of Light on Channel Seven has predicted no rain. We live in dark times, times of drought.”

“When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east," I continued sadly. "When the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves we will need to go out and water the lawn. We have no time for the inn… for I am the watcher of the lawn. I shall wear no crowns and win no glory. I shall live and die at my post. I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the grass. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that makes the lawn verdant and glorious.”

“But… everything's better with some wine in the belly,” Lord Scotto laughed, taking a bite of his cheese.

I sighed, my sigh as soft as sin. “Choosing... it has always hurt. And always will. I know. Lawn or inn? Inn or lawn?” I struggled in my thoughts, torn apart at the idea of a parched garden in the morn.

But the master of cajoling manipulated my yearnings with his silver tongue.

We rode to the inn on the Veloster steed and I was hungrier than I would have believed. We finished two whole chickens and part of a third, and drank a flagon of wine, talking, laughing.

The wine went to my head, I fear. The next thing I knew, I was sharing his bed. Afterwards I was shy and wept, but he kissed me and sang me a little song about a spider climbing a water pipe and being washed away by the rain and when at last he opened the blinds, the puddles of rain were glistening in the pale morning light.

I had never loved him so much as I did in that instant. The drought had broken.

Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Just like a true Christmas miracle we finally have a contract on the sale of our house.

Fingers crossed it will go through successfully in early February.

Woo-hoo, Gold Coast, watch out for the Poinkers!

When I’ve mentioned to people that Scotto and I are moving south next year, quite a few people have looked shocked.

“But what about your kids, Pinky?” they’ve demanded.

Usually, I sit there gasping for air, riddled with guilt at what a selfish mother I must be to abandon my babies like that and wonder what everyone must think of me.

But I’ve been thinking about it.

The thing is, my five ‘kids’ range in age from twenty-six to nineteen.

The baby of the family, Lulu, has nicked off to her boyfriend in Melbourne for Christmas and twenty-four year old Jonah, is celebrating Christmas in the big smoke as well. The other three are still in town and will be around for Christmas Day festivities but it’s not as if any of them cling to my apron strings. Purse strings maybe, but not apron strings.

Every single one of my kids has been on at least one overseas holiday this year and I can assure you I wasn’t invited to accompany any of them. Half the time they don't even tell me they're going. I find out afterwards when they present me with a snow globe from Hong Kong.

My ‘kids’ wouldn’t bat an eyelid at moving cities without me, if the opportunity arose.

I’ve told them all they can come with us when we move but strangely they’re not at all interested.

I think it’s something to do with the fact they’ve grown up to be secure, self-sufficient, well-balanced individuals who have interesting lives full of wonderful friends and passions of their own.

They don’t NEED me anymore.

But that’s not something we as parents should grieve over.

It’s proof we did our job properly, don’t you think?

I’ll miss them of course but you really can’t live your life for your kids. That would be too stifling for them.

While you're here, I'd like to thank you for being such an interactive reader of my blog this year. You make it all worthwhile, I mean it. I hope with all my heart that you and your family have a very happy and safe Christmas.

Sunday, December 20, 2015

I’ve been a bit bored this weekend and have resorted to reading conspiracy theories on the Internet.

Stuff about Osama Bin Laden still being alive and living in disguise as an Elvis impersonator in Las Vegas as a cover for working with the CIA who are planning to take down the Illuminati who’ve managed to communicate with aliens on the planet Nibiru which is hiding behind the sun but is in a direct collision course with Earth. In the meantime the Catholic Church is hiding documents which prove the Hadron Collider will destroy the Earth by creating a gigantic black hole and the only person who can stop it is JFK who is also still alive and living in a secret location on Mt Ararat in, you guessed it, Noah’s Ark.

Stuff like that.

F-A-C-T-U-A-L stuff, guys.

Read more stuff on the Internet and learn something through research guys.

As a matter of fact, I’ve come up with a few conspiracy theories of my own.

1. The government is forcing the medical profession to tell us that alcohol is bad for us (lol) because we have our most creative ideas and can see the bigger truths when we’re pissed. Why, just the other afternoon Scotto and I came up with a brilliant invention while we were in the swimming pool drinking wine. We were hooting and high-fiving like crazy it was such a brilliant concept. I’d tell you what that freakin fantastic invention was but it’s not patented yet and I don’t want you nicking our million dollar idea. Plus, I don’t really remember what it actually was… but I’m sure it’ll come back to me soon.

2. Santa is not real. I saw him in Kmart, then I drove really quickly to Target and he was there as well and it wasn’t the SAME SANTA! Not only that but the Santa in Target was really tall and the Santa in Kmart looked like he’d be able to ride Makybe Diva in the Melbourne Cup. Santa is invented by the New World Order and all those Santas are really just a bunch of disguised Rothschild cousins trying to stimulate the economy by making us buy presents ensuring that we stay poor while they get even richer.

3. Stone fruit is available all year round but it’s only available to us poor people at Christmas for $25 a kilogram. Meanwhile, the Rothschilds feed nectarines and lychees to their chickens every day of the year. Well… the Rothschild’s slaves feed the chickens, I mean, not the actual Rothschilds… because they’re too busy having secret naked meetings in the woods around pentagons and stuff.

4. There is a conspiracy theory about poo babies. Some people say the spare tyres on your belly are just poo accumulated from eating too many rum balls and mince pies. Believe me. I’ve tested it out and the spare tyre is not full of poo. The same thing goes with a ‘wind baby’. Even though you feel 2 kilos lighter when you let Fluffy off the chain, wind doesn’t weigh that much unfortunately.

5. There is a theory that Turduckens are clandestinely made from a chicken stuffed inside a duck which is stuffed inside a turkey. Personally, I find this to be ridiculous.I know in my heart it’s just a turkey with a really big poo baby and who the hell would eat that?

Thursday, December 17, 2015

In a galaxyjust down the roadin a nice cinema where you are allowed to take a glass of wine in
with you, I saw the latest episode of Star Wars. I’d been dragged there by my husband
who giggled in excitement as the opening credits
rolled onto the screen and I knew it was probably
going to be a very long two hours, twenty minutes with a
lot of anxious, whispered interrogation from myself as to which sister, mother, brother, cousin, robot, hairy creature each character

represented. I knew there’d be a lot of jokes I didn’t get and that the only actor
I’d recognise was Harrison Ford because the last Star Wars movie I watched was
way back in 1977 when episode four had just been released which doesn’t make any bloody sense
no matter how many times I have it explained to me. So, all in all it was pretty good
especially the part where I got to watch every single man in the theatre sprint to the toilet and
back because they didn’t want to miss one second including my husband who I’ve never seen move so fast in my life. Go and see it because the new robot is quite cute, the lead actress is great and there is no sign whatsoever of Jar Jar
Binks in the entire movie which can only be a good thing. 4/5...

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Scotto and I are on a budget since we’ve both resigned and are waiting to sell the house, so when we’d arranged to meet some friends in the city for dinner we thought we’d save on cab fares and catch the bus there and back. It seems a bit pedestrian… but what can you do when you don’t have an income?

It all went well on the trip in, but when we left the restaurant at 8:00pm the buses in town travelling to the suburbs were far and few between. A menacing tumbleweed flew past me in the deserted street.

“Let’s go and sit at the bus stop outside the cop station,” I suggested, looking around at the dim lighting and uninhabited streets. “It should be safe there.”

There was a skinny, puny guy with a shaved head, wearing no shoes and patrolling the pavement at the bus stop. He looked fairly harmless, I thought. Slightly psychotic but not in a meat head sort of way. One whack with my handbag if he tried anything funny and he’d be prostrate on the pavement within seconds. My handbag is pretty fudging lethal.

We sat on the bus stop seat and naturally, the weird guy immediately made a beeline for us, goosestepping up and down in front of us, listening to the doof doof on his headphones and staring at us with a glassy, zombie-like expression.

After a few minutes of awkward, blank staring, Scotto smiled at him and said kindly, “Gidday mate. How’s it going?”

The man continued to glare at us in the same unfocussed fashion. He smirked at us and hissed something under his breath as if he was Voldemort on a particularly bad ice trip.

“Are you okay?” I stammered, watching the poor guy’s face twitching in spasms at us and rolling his eyes in a not very gracious fashion.

“I’m not GAY!” he howled at us. “I’m GA-BRI-EL! The Archangel! I’m GOD!”

Now I know this might sound silly, but for a fleeting second, it crossed my mind that perhaps he was God. I mean it is Christmas time and you know how in the Bible it was always the poorest of the poor and all that stuff. Maybe this was a test… I tried to stop giggling.

I was mystified. All I could see was the tattoo of a snake on his cadaverous belly. (Scotto told me later he was looking for a belly button because if he didn't have a bellybutton then he was definitely God.)

“A rib!” shouted Scotto after a few seconds of discomfort.

“Yes!” screamed our new friend. “It’s the missing rib! I’m Adam!”

I could see he had a bit of a dent in one side of his ribcage. Maybe he was God. Who am I to judge?

“Look out behind you!” he suddenly cried out as he cringed in horror. “It’s STEVE!!!!”

Scotto and I both jumped out of our skin in panic and whipped our heads behind us, but there was nothing but the masonry block, brick wall of the cop shop.

“Who’s Steve?” I asked in terror, wondering what the fudging cops were doing right now… having a fudging cup of tea I supposed while we were sitting three metres away about to be murdered.

“Well, that’s not very nice,” I nodded in sympathy. “What did he do to you?”“HE TURNS THE AIR CONDITIONING OFF IN OUR ROOM!” Adam/God/Gabriel shouted. "HE'S SATAN!"

“I’m GOD!” he shrieked again, scaring the pigeons in the eaves of the cop shop. “I’m fu#$ing BULLETPROOF! Someone fired a shot gun at me and it didn’t leave a f#@ing mark on me! See these shadows behind me??”

We squinted through fully dilated pupils at the space behind him and nodded in terror.

“They disappear when I turn around because they can’t LOOK ME IN THE FAAAACEEE!”

Then he got a bit carried away after that, "I gave Moses the commandments! I don't care if he dropped them!" he ranted.

It was at that stage, we both started thinking this was turning into the "Life of Brian: Part Two" and I turned to Scotto, “Can we really not afford a fudging taxi fare? I really think we might have a bit of a splurge. What do you reckon?”

Sunday, December 13, 2015

Scotto and I went for a swim and a romantic picnic at a local waterhole called Alligator Creek, yesterday. We haven't been on a romantic picnic for years.

I had visions of water droplets cascading from my transcendent, sleek body and shaking them off as he watched the crystal dewdrops splatter gloriously from my tanned and non-cellulite ridden thighs as I performed a non-awkward, triple pirouette underneath the waterfall.

While it seems like asking for trouble to deliberately place ourselves within snapping distance of an alligator, I can assure you there aren’t any alligators there… plenty of those saltwater crocodile things, but thankfully no alligators.

When we arrived we discovered the creek and waterholes were completely dried up anyway.

No cascading water Elle McPherson-type erotic scenes for me it seemed.

But in truth, I was more concerned about the deadly snakes in the area. Fortunately, the grass in the picnic grounds was so parched and dead it was really just dirt and you’d be able to spot an Eastern Brown slithering towards you from fifty metres away. Especially if he was wearing a hat (which he should have been on the sweltering 35 degree day).

Even if the snake tried to camouflage himself with a hat, you’d be able to hear the crunching of desiccated leaves as he slithered… unless the snake had learned to make curlew noises to disguise the crackling of course. Then we’d be dead within five minutes of the bite, if he gave us a good one.

Still, Eastern Browns are only the second deadliest snakes on land and the Inland Taipan, which is the deadliest snake, prefers to keep to itself so… meh. Eastern Brown is a loser.

We hadn’t been to Alligator Creek for ages because last time we went on a romantic picnic; Scotto was attacked by a goanna and savagely bitten on the finger. It was his own fault for trying to feed it a piece of marinated steak after I’d energetically pointed out the warning signs but as soon as Scotto gets a whiff of the bush, he starts thinking he's a cross between Steve Irwin and Bear Grylls and mistakenly believes he has an affinity with all creatures great and toothy.

Cooking without oil: I use my own urine instead.

I frantically reiterated my warnings about delusions of grandeur when we arrived at the creek and Scotto promised not to feed anything except me.

Imagine his surprise when, as he was cooking some fat sausages on the barbecue, this little mongrel flew down and snatched a sausage off a plate then landed on a low branch smirking at us as if to say,

“You never expected that from a merry, little, fudging kookaburra sitting in an old gum tree did you, ya bloody unsuspecting tourists?”.

The little mongrel's gloating didn’t last long though because another kookaburra swooped in and started a vicious pecking match over the sausage. Within seconds, a scrub turkey was in on the action and it was like a scene from a zombie movie where all the zombies are wearing feather boas and fighting over someone’s severed head.

It gave Scotto such a fright he burnt his hand on the barbecue.

The entire time we sat eating our lunch, we were conscious of two pairs of eyes boring holes in our skulls as we shovelled the sausage and bread down before Satan’s evil, winged creatures could snatch it from our hands.

The scrub turkey malevolently circled our table as I wielded a blunt bread knife in its direction and reminded it of what the favourite poultry treat for the festive season is.

“Look!” I pointed at the sign on the picnic table. “We’re not allowed to give you anything, you bastards. Can't you read?"

There were no laughing kookaburras to be seen that day, just a couple of deranged, voracious feathered fiends with pointy beaks who wanted our lunch.

Mind you, it’s probably a good thing they didn’t laugh because legend has it, if you hear a kookaburra laugh it means someone in the vicinity is pregnant and we were the only people there that day... what with the lack of swimming facilities, murderous heat and fanatical, rabid wildlife running amok in the place.

I'll fudging take what I fudging want!

We slowly packed up the esky when we finished, keeping a cautious eye on the sadistic sentinels in the gum tree.

“When I give the signal, make a run for the car, Pinky,” Scotto hissed out of the corner of his mouth, trying not to alert the sinister bird life on what was about to go down.

He reminded me of Matt Damon in the Bourne Identity and I got a bit turned on to tell the truth.

Anyway, I almost tripped in the skirmish because my shoes were slippery with sweat and frightened slobber, but we managed to escape with our lives and drove away leaving a cloud of dust and two disappointed, psychotic birds in our wake.

Saturday, December 12, 2015

There’d been a long flurry of FB messages on Wednesday night because one of our group had to be flown down to Brisbane for emergency surgery on Tuesday. It was serious. None of us had been able to sleep we were so worried about her. She’s doing okay, thank God.

The decision of where we were going for coffee took up another long bustle of inane and pointless messaging. Finally we agreed on a time and destination and the next day I arrived 5 minutes early at the cafe and sat waiting for about fifteen minutes, twiddling my thumbs, cursing their tardiness under my breath and silently tut-tutting teenagers with their arses hanging out of their shorts walk past.

Finally, in a fit of impatient fury, I rang Kyles.

“Where the hell are you bitches?” I hissed into the phone. “I’ve been sitting here by myself for half an hour! The waitress thinks I’m a homeless person. She’s taken the packets of sugar off the table!”

Naturally, I’d gone to the wrong cafe in confusion because of the countless places that had been suggested the previous night.

“It’s your own fault, Pinky!” they all screeched when I stalked in, wild-eyed and cranky.

"You're going senile," Kazzy quipped.

Coffee with the girls transpired as it usually did with smutty reflections on how the silhouettes painted on the wall resembled penises and Shazza volunteering to pose for a prank photo with one of the said penises. We snorted and giggled in our usual infantile camaraderie.

“I’m going to lunch with my old friends I haven’t been out with for fifteen years, tomorrow,” I chimed. “I’ll have to act classier than I am with you lot. Those ladies are from the other side of town. The good side of town. They’re more refined and stylish. There’ll be no joking about penises.”

“Ah garn!” the trouble-making element of the Buzz Club slurped her skinny latte. “We’re classy, Pinky!”

I was a bit nervous meeting up with my friends from another life, yesterday. We’d all belonged to a playgroup together when our kids were toddlers. I’d followed their children’s progress over the years, often seeing them in the newspaper, winning awards or graduating with medical degrees and other highly successful endeavours.

I was immediately in trouble the minute I arrived because I was supposed to make the restaurant booking and typically, I hadn’t… so we had to lug uneven tables together. It’s always my fault, it seems, even after fifteen years, always the scapegoat.

Despite not having sat down to a wine and lunch with these ladies for so long, the conversation still managed to rapidly degenerate into subjects such as; unexpected but thrilling orgasms in middle-age, the particular preferences for how we all groom our squish mittens, and what laser surgery we’d all had over the years.

To be honest, it was as if we hadn’t seen each other for a week. I'm positive they would have loved my penis observations.

Some bonds can’t be broken.

I thought about it and I realised it’s not a coincidence I have the same familiarity and connection with this group of women as I have with the Buzz Club.

Tuesday, December 8, 2015

Have you heard about those weirdo people who buy fudging Christmas presents at the New Year sales and save them to give them to their loved ones the following Christmas?

Oh, how organised and economonistic they are!

WRONG!

Who wants to get a horrible, dusty, mildewed, creased, present that's been squashed in someone's closet for twelve months?

Who keeps stuff festering in their cupboards for twelve months anyway?

Imagine the vermin and bacteria breeding in those out of date products!

Where do they store them for twelve months anyway? Their underwear drawers? Shudder.

Let’s face it; almost everything becomes passé after a couple of months. Fashionable colours change, fads alter and children’s preferred superheroes are stripped of their relevance and reverence. People are going to know you’ve taken the bargain-basement route. People aren’t stupid.

One year, pineapples are the go, they’re everywhere. There are pineapple ashtrays, pineapple seafood trays, pineapple tampon holders. Pineapples are so NOW! The next year the spurned and disgraceful pineapple is sent to the warehouses in shame and suddenly the pomegranate is all the go.

Nobody is seen dead with a fudging pineapple in their house, and there you are on Christmas day, presenting Nana McDonough with a set of pineapple cheese knives and everyone KNOWS you bought them in January.

And kids can sniff out a twelve month old present from 200 metres.

Imagine if I turned up with a 2014 Minion doll I’d purchased for 75% off last year for my nephew, Henry, this Christmas? Sure, he’d have liked it last year but Minions are so over in 2015.

He’d be scowling at me with his screwed up ten year old face, “What the FUDGE is this Aunty Pinky? I asked for this LAST year! This is so YESTERDAY! I fudging HATE you. You’re a fudging CHEAPSKATE, Aunty Pinky!” He’d toss it in the swimming pool in a fit of rage and curse me while embracing the far more up to date Star Wars, RT D2 toy his other aunty had gifted him.

And I wouldn’t blame him.

Besides, the last thing I want to think about on Boxing Day or the New Year is going to the bloody shops. I’d rather gnaw off my own arm… and believe me, my teeth aren’t that sharp anymore so it would be painful to do it.

As far as some people go, the annoying wankers who go out in June and do all their Christmas shopping… well, perhaps they should start living their life in the present and stop being over-achieving dickheads, because it’s Winter in June and they should be home snorting hot chocolate, wearing fluffy slippers and listening to Michael Buble instead of snuffling around the junk aisle at Kmart looking for cheap bath towels and novelty pineapple soap holders to offload on their alleged loved ones.

As far as I’m concerned, Christmas is about spontaneity. Leave it until a few days before Christmas so at least your gammy gifts aren’t infested with weevils and wood lice. It might be more stressful but at least you’ll be there with the rest of humanity; red-faced, blood pressure rising to dangerous levels and listening to that dreadful piped music along with the hordes of other desperates.

That’s the real spirit of Christmas. Suffering. (Or is that Easter?... I’m confused.)

Wednesday, December 2, 2015

I have one and a half days left of the school year at the college I spent the last ten years teaching at.

(*Never end a sentence with a preposition!)

I just saw the grade three class I taught in my first year of teaching at the school, graduating in grade 12. Wow! What a bookend to my ten years of teaching at this school!

It’s a sentimental moment for me and as a parting gift, I want to let the parents in on some truisms…

1. We teachers genuinely like your children. Adore them actually. In point of fact, your children often appear in my dreams. I’ll say to one of them, “Hey Darius! I dreamed I was a chicken last night and you were my egg!”

That will be the end of the conversation and Darius will avoid me for a week, but we really do think about your kids all the time. It’s a thing.

2. We spend a lot of our personal money on your kids. Rewards such as stickers, lollies and random prizes, such as $3 tuckshop vouchers, come out of our own pockets. Multiply that by twenty-five and it does add up. At one stage I was spending more on my students than I did on my own five kids. (I only brought up the $3 tuckshop voucher because I just remembered I owe one of the tough kids in the class a voucher and I better pay up tomorrow or I’ll find a bloodied horse torso on my pillow in the school holidays.)

3. We suck up the rewards we receive from your offhand praise.

When you, the parent, make a blasé comment that little Malvolio has begun reading fiction novels because me, the teacher, read the entire seven books in the Chronicles of Narnia, OUT LOUD, in my MOST expressive voice… after morning tea… every single day, my heart sings like the bluebirds encircling Cinderella in the Disney movie. My vision goes all cloudy and I want to hug myself.

4. We will remember your child for the rest of our lives. I taught speech and drama to hundreds of students for fifteen years before starting as a primary teacher, so all up I’ve been teaching for 25 years. I remember every single kid.

5. Teachers are humans and sometimes we have bad days, for example… I’ve just received a phone call advising me of a mammogram recall because of a suspicious shadow, or the pool man just rang to say my filter has self-immolated and it’s going to cost me $1500 minimum for repairs, or my teenage son has just written off his uninsured car and he still owes me $7000 on it but doesn’t have a proper job or any sense of obligation.

Sometimes we may raise our voice a bit louder than normal. Sometimes we might be a bit mean. But the fact is, your kids are going out into a world where their boss is going to have a bad day and kids need to learn that life is about ups and downs and they better get used to it.

6. We will look for your children in years to come. We’ll scan the newspapers to check if any of our protégés have won the Nobel Prize or won a fashion design competition or an Oscar and if they do we’ll nudge our sleepy husbands in the ribs and take full credit when we see it on the telly. We wish success for your kids just as much as you do. Really.

7. The honest thing is, we chose to be teachers. We truly love your children and have their true interests in our hearts. We’ll never forget them and we secretly hope they’ll never forget us.

8. My favourite teacher at school was my French teacher, Dr. Crispin. I loved him because he taught through anecdotes and treated his students with respect. I've always tried to be that sort of teacher.

Sunday, November 29, 2015

Why is it so much more irritating and itchy when a mosquito bites you on your foot compared to other parts of your body?

You can’t scratch it as hard and when you do you get scum under your fingernails and it tickles so you’re actually torturing yourself whilst relieving yourself. I don’t like it.

Only a few things put me in a vicious mood, for example, when I’m all dressed up and my hair blows into my lipstick, or when I spill the sugar container all over the floor and no matter how thoroughly I clean it up I can still feel it underfoot and mostly, when mosquitoes bite me on the fudging foot.

There are a lot of mozzies around because of the muggy conditions here in the dry tropics. When I say ‘dry tropics,’ I mean ‘oppressive, desert-like, apocalyptic, hell hole’.

Today, our bloody internet went down and our pool turned green which meant no swims for us and no entertainment, just sweltering in the 35 degree heat and watching the boring telly.

Why do broadcasters think all day golf is even remotely interesting television viewing?

I switched over to ‘Border Patrol’, (the most xenophobic, bogan show ever) and wondered why people who get caught by the federal police don’t watch the show to get tips on how to smuggle more effectively? The old lining on the suitcase thing is getting a bit tired and I’m sure the Feds would appreciate more of a challenge. What ARE they teaching kids in schools these days?

My top tips for smuggling would be:

1. Sweating is a dead giveaway. Don’t sweat.

2. Don’t stuff things up your botty or swallow things because it can explode inside you and make you sweat quite profusely alerting the authorities to some sort of mischief afoot.

3. A bunch of bananas and a bag of grapes are NOT worth a $300 fine. You can buy bananas and grapes in most countries, so why?

4. If your hands are shaking and your eyes are darting around the place, you’ll be detained for an internal examination. Try to act natural or they’ll find those bananas before you can say ‘Yes, I have no bananas in my toiletries bag.’

5. Don’t have neck tattoos because it makes you look highly suspicious. People who have neck tattoos are obviously tough, impervious to pain and wouldn’t flinch at swallowing thirty condoms full of cocaine. Plus they’re probably the type of person silly enough to do it. (No offence to anyone with a neck tattoo. Really. I think they look lovely.)

6. Smuggling drugs in lava lamps is a recognisable ploy because lava lamps went out in the eighties. So did oversized wigs.

7. Ignorance is no excuse for the law so when you fail to declare the raw fish and exotic bean sprouts in your luggage, cocking your head to one side in a fetching manner and saying, “Que?” will fail to get you out of a fine.

If I was going to smuggle anything into the country, I’d dress as an unnaturally fat nun. But I wouldn’t hide things under my voluminous habit. Oh no. I’d have Scotto dressed as an old aged, crippled, visually challenged person and I’d have all the contraband stuffed inside his artificial leg. They’d check under my habit then be so embarrassed when I came up clean, they wouldn’t dare to touch poor, blind Scotto.

Now back to those mosquitoes. Why does the foot hurt so much compared to the other bits?

Friday, November 27, 2015

I’m fifty-five. Yeah, I know, I don’t look it or act it… but I freakin am. Jaysus!

(I totally look it.) Fifty-five is almost fudging SIXTY.

So what happens to women as far as sex goes when they get past fifty? It’s an interesting question because ,let’s face it, we aren’t all Olivia Newton John.

(She’s my role model and I reckon she goes for it like a fudging rabbit.)

Well… this is my take anyway…

1. You’ll probably get a whole lot of extra urinary tract infections because the distance between your who’syourfather and your boombalishus becomes a lot fudging closer due to the thinning of certain infuriating soft tissues. Urinary tract infections are moderately tolerable if you're having sex in multiple positions in various dangerous locations, thirty-five times a day.

But if you have a normal bonk once a week and you still get them... then it's a travesty.

2. Even though you’ve finally realised what pops your cork at the age of whatever, it doesn’t matter because you’ve lost the taste a bit because of other temptations such as; sleep ins, clean, unsullied sheets, and over-indulged dogs who refuse to get off the bed.

3. Sometimes it can hurt because of the friction and the thinning of the before-mentioned, infuriating soft tissues. You can grit your teeth and bear it but… God, really?

4. You’ll feel uninspired and unsexy because when you look down at the boobs which fed five ravenous babies, they’re now dangling like a pair of golf balls in football socks (the boobs not the babies) and your stomach fold is encompassing your caesarean scar. If you don’t feel sexy in yourself, then honestly... it’s all gone to hell in a washing basket.

5. The thought of the extra energy needed to get yourself in the mood and the exercise required during the ‘act’, doesn’t quite balance up with the pitiful amount of calories which will probably be burnt. Seriously? All that effort has got to have some benefit or why bother?

6. Imaginative positions such as ‘the wheelbarrow’ or the 'reverse cowboy' are completely ruled out due to back, knee, ankle, groin and jaw strains.

I could go on but I fear I may be over-sharing, and I'd hate to do that. All I can say is, enjoy it while you can and that if you don’t use it you lose it.

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Remember how my husband, Scotto, left town to start a new job and I wasn’t going to see him again until we sold the house?

Well, we haven’t sold the house... despite dropping the price by fifty grand as a red spot special. And it was unfeasible financially for the husband to stay away… or for me to move down what with all the dogs, so... he’s back.

Sans job.

I too, will be sans job until 2017. Fortunately, we both have a combined 9 months long service leave between us, so we’ll be okay.

But the thing is, while he was away for the last month, I thought I’d surprise him with a modelesque physique when I next saw him. I thought I’d have him dribbling in lust at my Kate Moss body after weeks of self-imposed starvation and physical torture when he next saw me.

I’ve been living on 800 calories a day and power walking for an hour a day at 5am before work.

Every damn day.

In the meantime, he’s been skyping me as his cheesy pizza sits heating in the oven, or his 500gram steak sizzles on the stove with garlic bread on the side with a family block of chocolate set aside for before bed, tucked into his pillow case.

When I finally saw my husband today, after an entire month of estrangement and deprivation on my part, he laughingly joked, “Don’t look at my big gut, Pinky. I might have put on a kilo.”

I replied politely, “What gut, silly? You don’t look any different to me sweetheart.”

Then he replied with the most soul destroying words I’ve ever heard.

“Neither do you, sweetie!”

FUDGE THE FUDGING UNIVERSE!

(Sorry for swearing.)

What the hell? Are you like me and are just starting to think, I'm just going to let it all go to hell in a hand basket?

Friday, November 20, 2015

If you were born in the sixties or seventies, you’d remember when local television shows broadcasted afternoon shows where they’d invite the local, feral children to appear on the telly with a glamorous hostess and the mandatory clown and do pretty boring things in the name of entertainment.

Our local television station (situated on top of a mountain) had one such show and somehow when I was seven years old and my sister, Sam, was four, my parents managed to get us on to the show.

I remember I was a ball of excitement all the way up the mountain that day. I was about to meet Sam the Clown and Rosemary, the famous and glamorous hostess.

The journey back down the mountain after the show was a different story.

Nobody spoke. So deeply ashamed of my attention-seeking performance, my mother sat with her teeth clenched in humiliation, not able to acknowledge her eldest daughter after her abominable display of exhibitionism.

That’s how I remember it anyway.

We were given goody bags with coke bottles and chips and stuff, but they tasted bitter with my mother’s eyes boring resentfully into my forehead as I tentatively consumed them when we arrived back home.

“You were a disgrace, Pinky!” I remember her saying. “Why did you have to be such a loud mouth, show off?”

The next day, as we were lining up outside my grade two classroom, one of my young peers commented, “I saw you on the telly last night. My mum said you looked like a cheeky brat.”

My teacher, Miss Callaghan (a pious bitch who had a brown perm and a dour expression) nodded in agreement.

The jury was out. I’d been a tarnish on the honour of all seven year olds in the city and brought shame on my family and the population of the town.

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Scotto and I have a standard thing where, if we have a sudden pain or sharp twinge, we just say to each other, “Don’t worry about it. It’s probably just a nerve”.

For example, my thumb will start to randomly twitch.

“Parkinsons!” I’ll gasp, my face white with fear.

And Scotto will say: “It’s probably just a nerve. Either that or you drank too much last night. You’ll be right.”

One side of my face will go numb and I can only talk from the left side of my mouth whilst dribbling profusely: “Stroke!” I’ll slur.

“It’s a nerve.” Scotto will scoff. “Don’t be a sook. Here, have a wine.”

My left leg falls off and I go blind in one eye: “It’s only a nerve,” he’ll admonish. "You’ll be better tomorrow. Come on hop-a-long. Let’s go to the pub."

All joking aside, I’m sort of known as Dr. Poinker at work.

When I say ‘sort of’ I mean I’m not.

But I should be because I know lots of stuff most non-medical people don’t on account of being a hypochondriac. I can diagnose everyone’s maladies from pernicious anaemia to a carbuncle on the ankle. GPs hate my guts.

It started way before the Internet too. I had a medical encyclopaedia I read as fastidiously as one might read a copy of An Idiot’s Guide to Writing Inane Blog Posts.

So I was excited last night when I did one of those Facebook quizzes that tested medical knowledge. Twelve questions it promised, but it lied. There were fifty questions. FIFTY! But once I got started I couldn’t stop and I knew from my maniacal tallying, I got 46 out of 50 correct and I wanted to skite about it on Facebook.

But when I went to get my results I had to submit my email address and I thought, ‘Get fudged! I don’t want to be spammed with your stupid emails.’

So then I tried to leave a nasty comment on the link but it put me in a never ending loop and I was left frustrated and probably hacked by Russian bots during the process.

NB: Not to pick on the Russians. It might have been anyone really but I doubt anyone reads my blog in Russia so they’re fair game.

If you do happen to be Russian and you read this blog, I must add that I really loved Olga Korbut, that gymnast in the 70s but I do wonder why you sent that poor little mongrel dog into space in 1957 and left it to endlessly orbit the galaxy. Not that I hold a grudge about it because I do love Tchaikovsky and Vodka.

R.I.P. Laika.

If my dogs were sent into space I reckon I’d still be able to hear them barking as they orbited Earth in the space machine. The greenhouse gasses would be exponentially enhanced by the permeating cloud of citrus spray from their barking collars. I’m sure a few local animal management officers would be more than glad to see them on a direct trajectory to Mars, not to mention the neighbours.

They’d have to cut off their oxygen supply in the end, I suppose.

Just like I’m about to do to my German Shepherd if he doesn’t shut the hell up.

Sorry to be harping on about my barking dogs but it’s driving me loony. Anything driving you loony lately?

Monday, November 16, 2015

I was watering the lawn at dusk the other day and I noticed a large, brown, gleaming, elongated lump on my precious buffalo grass. Outraged, and assuming it was the calling card of an early morning walker’s dog, which’d furtively pooped on my grass while I was still snoring, I swore loudly and aimed a sharp jet of water on it. I expected it to break apart and dissolve but it didn’t.

It remained solid but a weird cloud of red dust sprayed up and out of it.

I gave it another shot with the hose and it happened again. I was a bit afraid of it by now and tiptoed closer. I suspected it might be an extra-terrestrial egg or something and a ten legged squid-like creature was going to burst out and attach itself to my throat or invade one of my orifices only to lay more eggs inside me and emerge from my nose at an inopportune moment. Each time I squirted it, more red dust would mist up in the air.

I was on the phone to my father at the time and he didn’t offer any helpful suggestions. In fact, I think he assumed I was just being silly and it really was dog poop.

The next morning when I was on my way to work I checked it out and by that time, it was surrounded by huge, white mushrooms. By the afternoon all the mushrooms had transformed into the dog turd, brown things and I couldn’t water the lawn because they were all spraying red spores everywhere.

I don’t like mushrooms. I like the white ones you buy in Coles fried up with butter, but I can’t stand the ones that grow in the garden because I’m afraid I’ll accidentally eat one. (It’s the same as how I don’t like heights because I always think I might accidentally jump off the cliff or the fifty storey balcony or something.)

Plus I think fungi is ugly (See photo above).

Even when I buy the mushrooms from Coles I’m always wondering if an East Asian Death Cap or a False Champignon managed to sneak past the quality controllers. I still eat them but I always monitor myself for symptoms for a few hours afterwards.

Ian, the mower man, came and murdered all the fungi with his Victa Mustang, thank God.

I don’t know why they were there in the first place. It’s not like we’ve had any rain. Maybe I’m spending too much time watering the garden.

I suppose this type of post is why nobody seems to be reading my blog anymore.

“And what did you do on the weekend, Calpurnia?” I ask a little girl in the front row who’s stabbing holes in her rubber with a pencil. I can see she’s cut her own fringe again, this time it’s so short I suspect she took to it with a razor.

“I went killing crocodiles with Dad,” she says in a matter of fact tone. “There’s a big croc on the banks of the creek near our house. It ate a man last week, so Dad said we had to kill it.”

‘Funny,’ I think. ‘I haven’t seen any reports of a man being eaten by a crocodile in this vicinity lately.’

“That’s true, Calpurnia,” I say, whilst frowning at Malvolio for his rude interuption and thinking about how I should book in for a Botox injection between my eyebrows before Christmas and wondering if the clinic has any ‘teacher specials’ available for the holiday season.

“And what did you get up to this weekend, Malvolio?” I enquire, knowing full well what his answer will be.

“I went on Mortal Kombat all weekend!” he exclaims. “I killed six thousand monsters and maimed thirty thousand soldiers. My name is KillDeathBlood 1973 and I’m a legend!”

Now that I can believe.

What tall stories did your kids tell at school?Linking up with Grace at With Some Grace for #FYBF

Wednesday, November 11, 2015

My dogs have been particularly naughty since Scotto went away. I think they’re feeling extra protective of me because they seem to be barking at everything that moves. Either that or they’ve realised the true master of the house has absconded from the nut house and now the inmates are free to run wild.

I was compelled to go and buy yet another citronella barking collar (for the Chihuahua this time). I felt a rush of excitement and anticipation when I was buying it at the pet shop and couldn’t help giggling when I told the girl behind the counter, “This is going to give that little bastard a shock. I’ll show that Mexican son of a biartch.”

“Would you like to buy some calming vitamins for him?” she asked.

“Sure!” I replied, riding high on the euphoric thought that I’d solved my problem. “Anything’s worth a try.”

It was with great disappointment when I later watched Pablo enjoying a raucous and unnecessarily lengthy, barking binge, the citronella spray almost obscuring his small, muscular body, but the said spray having absolutely no effect on the tenacity of his riotous efforts.

Adding to my consternation, all the ‘calming’ vitamins managed to do was make the Chihuahua and the German Shepherd sick up. It was quite horrible.

I put a sheet up on the fence to stop the German Shepherd from seeing movement outside (a leaf blowing in the wind can trigger his incessant woofing) and I barricaded all the windows to prevent the Chihuahua from seeing the German Shepherd.

Unfortunately it appears that dogs have a good sense of hearing and can’t really see that well anyway.

Does anyone know if they make ear plugs for dogs?

In desperation I searched the Internet for a miracle solution… or just some doggy earplugs really.

I found a video which demonstrated a method of doggy ear massage and a five hour music video especially designed to calm dogs down. What kind of nit wit put that on the World Wide Web? What kind of nit wit would play it to their dog?

Anyway, the Chihuahua hated the ear massage and the music almost sent me mental and elicited no visible response from the dogs.

Apparently you should never yell at your dog for barking because they think you’re barking along with them. So all the time I’ve been screaming, “Shut the fudge up you fudging stupid animals!” They think I’ve been yelling out, “Get off the stinking lawn you mongrel Labrador, how dare you walk past my house! I want to bite you with my teeth!”

Another website advised to calmly call the dog over when it’s barking, make it sit quietly and give it a treat. (I’ve been using this technique as I’m writing my post and so far the Chihuahua has had thirty-eight treats. I don’t think he gets it.)

So… back to the ear plugs. You won’t believe it but you can actually buyMutt Muffs from the United States! According to the website they have ‘ inner sound-deadening foam with the same density found in pilots' high-end headsets’.

P.S. I just found out why the dogs have been barking for the last half hour non stop. Someone had been knocking on the door attempting to deliver some flowers Scotto had ordered for me in the top photo. Lol.

Sunday, November 8, 2015

I’ve had a large, local reaction. No, I haven’t been running laps on my front lawn in my undies and titillating the neighbours.

I’ve had a large, local reaction to the wasp that decided it didn’t like the cut of my jib on Thursday. There’s a big, red, hot lump on my elbow.

Celine the fox terrier came over and sniffed it a moment ago and whined something that sounded a lot like the word, ‘aaaampuuuutaaaaate’.

Dogs know these things. They can sniff out cancerous tumours and everything.

"Don't say I didn't warn you!"

It’s okay though, it’s my left arm. How much do you think an arm weighs? (I was just thinking it’d be a very quick way to lose a couple of kilos.)

Despite the vicious wasp assault, I’ve maintained my 5am starts and walks but decided to err on the side of caution and walk along the street instead of the foliage-lined river path. It’s not as picturesque but I don’t have to be as vigilant about looking out for snakes and spiteful wasps.

I showed my elbow to Scotto on Skype but the redness didn’t show up enough on the washed out screen to elicit much sympathy.

Agreeing to communicate with Scotto via Skype was not something that came easily to me. The thought of chatting to him on the telephone in sexy, appealing, dulcet tones, but with no makeup on, greasy skin, unwashed/combed hair and wearing a stained, ripped t-shirt whilst picking my nose or flicking through a magazine, seemed like the ideal long distance relationship mode of communication to me.

What you can’t see can’t hurt you and all that. But I missed seeing his big, boofy head and finally acquiesced to a face to face.

I suppose I’ve let myself ‘go’ a bit over the last ten years (since getting married) and in this past ten days, sans husband, my physical appearance has deteriorated exponentially. I’ve enjoyed lolling around in baggy shorts and going braless in tent-like t-shirts on the weekends.

My friend and real estate agent, Nettie, and I went for a coffee and a walk around the shops yesterday after the open house. She was dressed in a neat little pencil skirt, a white silk blouse and heels and I looked like a recently electrocuted homeless person who’d just crawled out of her sleeping bag.

I picked a dress off the rack in one of the boutiques.

“This is nice,” I said hopefully, feeling around for the price tag.

“It’s a sack, Pinky!” Nettie scoffed. “It has no waist. Besides I hate those high necklines.”

“But this style hides a big belly and the neckline protects your upper chest from the sun,” I stammered.

“Bugger the sun,” Nettie pooh-poohed me. “I think a bit of décolletage needs to be on show.”

I looked down at the floor in shame and spied her perfectly groomed, pink toenails under the sparkling straps of her pretty sandals, then glanced across to the gnarled bunion poking out the side of my rubber thong.

My toenails were so long they could Julienne a carrot and they were a dull grey colour with one black, crusty pinky-toe.

Nettie is an eligible single lady, you see. She still makes an effort. Women who get pedicures take care of themselves, unlike dirty-toed, old cows like me.

Sigh. I want a pedicure now but I think my bunion precludes me from even entering one of those nail salons. The young girls would shriek, ‘Pariah!’ and push me out the door. If they happened to notice the carbuncle wasp bite on my elbow they’d call the health authorities for sure.

Anyway, Scotto can’t see my feet on Skype.

I’ve decided what I’ll do next time I Skype Scotto, is smear Vaseline all over the camera lens on my laptop (I was about to smear it all over the screen but then I realised it wouldn’t work).

I’ll turn the lights off and wear a hat to cover my unwashed hair. That should create a dewy, mysterious look.

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